


Metro North to White Plains

by WithoutAQualmOfConscience



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, POV Second Person, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 16:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithoutAQualmOfConscience/pseuds/WithoutAQualmOfConscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remind yourself, every day, that you are so very lucky. You are no longer in the North. The world is yours because you are his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metro North to White Plains

The first time you see him, he is in motion.

i.

Greet the boy with honey hair on the train platform, kiss his hand when he offers it to you despite the way his mother laughs, let him stand too close to you, pay attention to the way he smiles and notice that he is a door just slightly unhinged and resolve to love him anyway.

ii.

The cold is harsh on your pretty face, your lovely hair, you read- in every magazine, in two languages, in men’s eyes. Lay awake at night and count split ends with the tips of your fingers, feeling out the knots and breaks. In the dark, you are not red and you suspect that he is not gold.

iii.

When the boy laughs, laugh with him. When he holds your hand, ignore that it is smaller than yours. When he kisses you, hold yourself up and do not fall into his arms; it is unlikely he could hold you.

iv.

Hold your breath until you shake while you wait for your father to accept his father’s offer.

Inhale sharply when you look up the boy’s house on Google Maps and realize the property is too large to fit the screen of your phone.

Exhale deeply when you cross the border.

v.

Your dog and your sister conspire to make your boy bleed and he bleeds so well that you suspect it is one of his hidden talents and when he cries, you can suspect that this is the other.

Now.

Do not mourn for all that might have been.

Do not mourn for soft hands and soft lips and soft words.

Do not mourn for the boys who are not your boy, who are not anybody’s boy anymore.

Do not mourn for an animal.

Do not mourn.

vi.

He says to you not to look up when you get into the city. It makes you look like a tourist.

Your younger sister cranes her neck and brushes the stares off her shoulder and is mistaken for a boy by all the Italian shopkeepers where you buy gelato and later a pocket knife. Just in case.

vii.

He is your boy and someday you will marry him and someday you will live in this house for good and someday you will have his children and they will be beautiful the way he is and someday you will pose beside him when the cameras find his remarkable face and someday, maybe, you will love him.

At least like him.

At least a little.

Something.

Anything.

viii.

Be polite when he sneers at you over the breakfast table.

Be kind when his mood is black and he rages.

Be understanding when he wears himself down and falls into a petulant exhaustion.

Be gentle when he threatens to kill your brothers and sisters.

Be perfectly still when he comes into your room and touches you and says that you are worthless but your face is pretty.

Do not say “and you, as well."

ix.

Your dates are always short and tonight he has seen it fit to let you find your own way home but allows you to walk to the train station with him. He doesn’t hold your hand anymore which is just as well. You keep your fingers wrapped around the necklace that he gave you the first time you kissed where people could see.

"I’m going into the city," he says, “You can make your way home, right? Mr. Clegan will let you in."

"Yes," you agree and do not tell him that when you see the tall gate-keeper with the scars and the sad eyes you are torn between the desire to touch him and the desire to make him soup. “It’ll be fine."

"Fine," he says, mimicking your accent, and then puts his cold hand behind your head and his scarred wrist against your cheek so gently that it feels like your skin is trying to run away, becoming tight and electric. “Now be a good girl," he says, “Do you understand?"

You look him in the eyes and can imagine the hinges of a door breaking off. In your house in the north you had a shed where the door once fell entirely off due to the metal rusting and a family of hares were disturbed and left to be eaten by owls. This boy’s mind is probably the same, though if he is an owl or an unfortunate, soft pet you aren’t sure.

"I understand," you say.

"Good girl," he says, and kisses your forehead while you cling to the necklace as though his own gifts could repel him.

You watch him leave, pull his long red coat close to his track-and-field body, pop his collar to his ears, walk like he is floating on air.

-

You watch him leave, step into the Metro North Line to New York and make a new resolution: outlive him.


End file.
